The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) absolved the former head of NSE and 8 others in the co-location case. Two of the former CEOs of NSE had been indicted by the ED in the co-location case where NSE was alleged to have provided priority access to select brokers in a manner that was prejudicial to the interests of smaller traders and investors. After the early investigations clearly pointed to lapses in supervision by NSE, the regulator has now fully absolved the former top management. This paves the way for the NSE IPO, which had been held up for the last few years due to this very issue.
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the plea filed by the telecom firms against the payment of AGR charges. Last year, the Supreme Court had allowed DOT to charge $13 billion from the large telecom firms. This amount included the original AGR charges due plus interest and penalty. The telecom firms like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had sought waiver of penalty and interest and a moratorium for payment of dues. However, all these demands have now been rejected and now the onus is on the telecom companies to pay up the AGR dues within the next 3 months has stipulated.
The Phase 1 of the trade deal between the US and China finally took shape on Wednesday. Under the deal, China will enhance its import of US agricultural products by $12.5 billion in year 1 and by $19.5 billion in year 2. This will be over and above the last 2017 figurer. In exchange, the US will not impose fresh tariffs on China and will also halve its tariffs on goods worth $150 billion to 7.5%. In addition, the US has also removed China from the list of currency manipulators and has put off more sensitive issues like IPR, security issues, Yuan management, government subsidies etc to the subsequent rounds.
AMFI has put forth its list of demands on behalf of the mutual fund industry from the Union Budget 2020. The AMFI wants recognition for specific debt funds also as eligible for Section 80C benefits like in the case of ELSS. In addition, AMFI has also demanded that the budget address the cascading effect on equity funds in the form of long term capital gains as well as the dividend distribution tax. AMFI also wants ULIPs to be brought on par with mutual funds as currently; ULIPs are exempt from long term capital gains tax while equity funds and ELSS funds are subjected to LTCG tax at 10%.
Global IT spending is expected to touch $3.9 trillion in the year 2020 according to a survey by Gartner. This shows a sharp revival in IT spending which had been tepid in the last few years due to global growth uncertainty. That appears to be changing going by the projections for IT spending. The report also highlighted that with global uncertainties waning, global companies are aggressively investing in IT with a predominant focus on social, mobility, analytics and cloud; predominantly the realm of digital technologies. This is likely to be great news for Indian IT companies which are largely dependent on the growth in IT spending across the US and Europe. The report also pointed out that biggest specific realm of growth continued to be “Software as a Service” (SAAS). IT spend is expected to cross $4 trillion in 2021.
IL&FS has confirmed that NCLAT will provide the formula for distribution of the proceeds of divestment of assets in this case. This largely takes away the absolute powers that the Committee of Creditors (COC) enjoyed in the past. IL&FS became a defaulter last year with outstanding debt to the tune of Rs.92,000 crore. This case is significant because in the past most operational creditors had got a bad deal as the financial creditors took away a chunk of the distribution. This created a challenge because if the operational creditors did not support the company then it would be forced into bankruptcy quickly.
